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VALLEY’S WINNING WAYS
Teamwork carries McDonald to Division III track crown
By joe scalzo
Columbus
How do you win a championship? This is how: During a stormy bus ride home following a kick-in-the-gut finish to the regional meet, you listen to a coach who ignores the rain and sees the reign.
“Each storm we’d go through, we’d see this rainbow that was following us,” said McDonald High boys track coach Lou Domitrovich. “I told the guys, every cloud has a silver lining and in this case, it’s gold.”
How do you win a championship? This is how: After one of the best athletes in your school’s history plays a game of “Can you top this?” on the first day of the Division III state track and field meet, you watch a senior named Miles Dunlap say, “Yes, I can,” finishing first the 300-meter hurdles, second in the 110 hurdles and third in the 200.
“There’s an expression: It’s easy as 1-2-3,” Domitrovich said. “But what Miles did today wasn’t easy.”
How do you win a championship? This is how: In scorching heat, with an exhausted Dunlap facing just a 20-minute break between the 300 hurdles and the 200, you gather a crowd of McDonald fans near the starting line and begin chanting “Miles Dunlap!” and “Let’s go Miles!”
“It’s like I had a basketball student section down there,” Dunlap said.
“They were just trying to get me back on my feet again. It was fantastic.”
How do you win a championship? This is how: You make a seemingly fatal blunder entering the final 100 meters of the 300 hurdles, stuttering your steps as your closest competitors move you from first to fifth, and you somehow find the resolve to push yourself through it and win by an extended eyelash.
“I’m pretty sure everyone passed me [at that hurdle] but I knew how bad I wanted it and no one wants more than me,” said Dunlap. “I don’t know if I dove across the line or tripped afterward, but that was me laying it on the line.”
How do you win a state championship? This is how: You open the doors to your weight room at 5:45 a.m. four times a week and watch a crowd file in.
You pay tribute to a school history that includes a staggering 55 state champions and decide to add three more.
You lose the regional meet by one point and decide to win the state meet by 10.
You pay tribute to your coach’s father by wearing uniforms with a winged “M” in the center, symbolizing your ability to soar above everybody else.
And when one of your teammates collapses in the heat, like Kyle Joynes did in the last 50 meters of the 3200-meter run, you sprint past the angry meet officials to meet him on the track and carry him off.
“We’re such a small school that we’re all we’ve got,” said Dunlap. “When one of us goes down, we have to be there to pick each other up.”
And when you win the state title — your first since 1999 — with just two athletes scoring points, you spend 10 minutes hugging and crying and blubbering through interviews, then you invite the entire team up on the podium, knowing those two were standing on their shoulders, anyway.
“We win as a team,” said Tayala, “and we lose as a team.”
So, how do you win a championship?
Do you do it through 6 a.m. workouts? Do you do it through coaching? Do you do it through heart? Do you do it through talent? Do you do it through rain and sun and good days and bad and indoor meets in November and outdoor meets in June?
Yes.